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Asante Gold (CSE: ASE) Poised to Move Ghana-Based Kubi Gold Project forward to Production

on 7/7/2016
Asante Gold (CSE: ASE), is currently doing exploration and development work at the Kubi Gold project and other properties located in Ghana to move forward to gold production. Under the leadership of Douglas MacQuarrie, President and CEO of Asante Gold, the company is developing the Kubi Gold Mine, which can be producing gold within a year with a modest capital investment. Ned Goodman – a Canadian mining legend has recently joined Asante as Chairman of the Board.



Douglas MacQuarrie, President and CEO of Asante Gold (CSE: ASE) offered his take on the progress of his company and the markets in general in a recent interview. He said, “I started working in Ghana 22 years ago now. For an eight year period I was the President of PMI Gold Corporation. That was the company that I built from zero and when I left in 2011 it was worth about $300 million dollars. That was basically on the back of developing the former Obotan mine up to, say five million ounces, which is now in production by Asanko Gold. PMI was bought out by Asanko in early 2013 for $180million in shares. After I left, I formed Asante Gold.”

Asante Gold has been in business for four years. MacQuarrie said, “We did our IPO at the peak of the market in 2012 and the price of gold unfortunately started correcting down shortly thereafter. We have three projects in Ghana now, one is an option with a private Ghana company I formed in the year 2000 of which I am the Managing Director.”



MacQuarrie’s relationships in the area have given the company access to other opportunities. He said, “As a result of an agreement with that company, we ended up with Kubi, which has a resource on it, and access to other properties.”

Kubi is currently primed for production. Said MacQuarrie, “Asante has an option on Kubi, which is being developed as a 500 ton per day underground mine and we are currently in the market looking for $15 million dollars in initial capital to fund its development. We expect the mine will be high grade, with custom milling and direct shipping and with a very low capital cost and only one year to production.”

Asante Gold can earn 100% of Kubi by funding it to production and issuing up to 17 million shares.



Asante is also working on other projects, MacQuarrie said, “The second project is an exploration project called Betanase. We have an option to purchase the concession from Perseus Ghana, and recently got good initial drilling results. The third project is Fahiakoba, which is adjoining to the north of Perseus’ Edikan gold mine. Again, we have a few high grade intersections in initial drilling, but it needs more exploration moving forward. All have suffered from a lack of exploration funding.”

Like many other companies, Asante has had to make choices about how to operate in this challenging market. Said MacQuarrie, “Again, the little juniors that you know are now just recovering from a really tough junior market over the last 3 years. The way that I see it is that if you keep building assets for your company – I believe that sooner or later somebody, with bigger dollars, recognizes it and they will pay the price. This is exactly what I did for PMI. Our Ghana assets started with a $2000 dollar investment in around the year 2000 – and were first vended into to PMI in late 2002. Asanko now, primarily based on PMI’s Obotan asset, has a market cap of more than $1 billion. We are following the same – continuous acquisition of good assets - plan at Asante.”

Said MacQuarrie, “At Betanase, Perseus had done quite a bit of exploration. When the market fell off and cash became scare, all of the big companies said no to more greenfields exploration. Rather than dropping it, they suggested we should do an option deal. If we don’t find anything big within 4 years, we’ll give it back. We did some ground geophysics using our in house crews and drilled the initial four holes. In my 35 years in the exploration business, I have seen that if your first four holes are positive, and the target is a big one, you are in good shape.”

Asante will have to complete additional financings to continue their work. Said MacQuarrie, “Since we did our IPO in 2012, we have not raised much in the way of financing. The reason for that, and some people would argue this, is to avoid dilutive financings, selling shares really cheap, when my stockholders have paid a premium. Instead, we borrowed $2 million dollars from premium stockholders to keep the Company moving forward through the lean times. We recently converted ½ of that debt to shares and moved the balance to long term debt to clean up the balance sheet. With the market now improving and a more financeable share price we expect to be able to raise significant funds to advance all the projects – and always looking for additional acquisitions.”

MacQuarrie is optimistic about the possibilities for his projects. He said, “The exploration project at Betanase is one where, I think with a bit of luck, we could bite into something big. It is 750 metres long and the local workings more than 2 km long. We got a few reasonable hits on the first four holes. We need another 40 to 60 holes to see what’s really there. Kubi is a good high grade, direct shipping opportunity with less than a year to initial production. Kubi makes sense at current gold price of +US$1300. Based on the resource to reserve upgrade drilling program planned, we are hoping to outline initial production stopes at eight to ten grams. It has ten years of resources and three years of reserves already outlined in a NI43-101 report. I guess I just see a lot of upside for Asante to transform to an operating company with real long life assets.”

Asante is largely owned by the management team and relatives which is why they are conservative about future dilution of the stock. Said MacQuarrie, “I own 25% of the company. Friends and family own another 25%. If you treat shareholders properly, you keep shareholders. We are one of the few companies that feel that way. These are tough times for exploration juniors, there is no question, but we are on the cusp of a major economic change and upward re-valuation of gold. Negative interest rates are the ‘canary in the gold mine’ – paper money, in particular the US$, is on the verge of a large – say 50% depreciation relative to real goods such as gold. Good gold equities with real gold exploration and development assets, like Asante, are essentially non-expiring options on gold in the ground. Get long gold – and wait!”

Contact info:

http://www.asantegold.com/

Douglas MacQuarrie, President & CEO
Telephone: 1-604-558-1134
Canada/US Toll Free: 1-877-339-7525
Fax: 1-604-558-1136
Email: Douglas@asantegold.com
SKYPE: douglas.macquarrie


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